Project Management What Is the Difference Between

Project Management

What is the difference between leadership and management? How do these two terms relate to a project manager?

Leadership defines the vision and mission for a project or business, and then orchestrates the many departments and divisions together for their fulfillment. A strong project leader will also seek ot unify diverse teams by concentrating on making the wide range of talents all combine for greater accomplishment than one person or team alone could attain. In short, a leader know how to use a strong, compelling vision and mission to unify diverse teams and people to a common, challenging goal or objective.

While a leader defines a vision or mission for a business, a manager is given the responsibility of making sure all departments, functional areas of the company and external stakeholders are all orchestrated to a common set of performance metrics. Managers are given the task of ensuring conformity to performance requirements in addition to preservation of the status quo. All of these functional areas are often combined into the four vital functions of planning, organizing, leading and controlling.

In the case of a project manager, they must combine both leadership and managerial skill sets. The leadership aspects of project management include concentrating on defining a compelling vision and mission, and through the use of communication and collaboration techniques, creating shared ownership throughout the teams. The project manager must also hold people and teams accountable for their performance over time as well, fulfilling the functional areas of planning, organizing, leading and controlling as well. In short, the project manager must concentrate on balancing both their leadership and managerial skills to ensure a high level of project performance, and continual attainment of project tasks. The best project managers have an innate strength at Emotional Intelligence (EI) that guides their situational assessments and judgment over time.

2. Describe the concept of a systems approach.

The basis of the systems approach to project management states that the many aspects, functional areas, and integration processes must all be integrated together to create a unified, holistic project. The systems approach to project management also centers on the need for making the many disparate systems, processes and programs a complex project relies on stay synchronized to a common goal or objective as well.

3. What is a systems development life cycle? What are some of the predictive models associated with the systems development life cycle?

By definition the systems development lifecycle (SDLC) is comprised of a series of components that together form a framework that describes the phases of software development, testing, release and support. There are many variations of the SDLC framework including the spiral model, waterfall model, incremental build model, prototyping and Rapid Application Development (RAD) models. The SDLC model is predicated on and relies heavily on what is called the predictive life cycle assumptions and concepts of its many variations mentioned. The predictive life cycle specifically stays that the meaning and scope of a project, including its schedule and costs, can be predicted in advance and included in the overall structure of the project plan.

4. Describe the concepts of informal methods for distributing information. How do they compare to formal methods for distributing information?

There are a myriad of informal methods for distributing information, each with varying degrees of accuracy, speed, and precision. In addition, there are the formal methods for distribution information and communicating as well. In projects, the informal methods of communication including discussions, conference calls, meetings and e-mails can be effective at getting time-sensitive information out quickly. These informal methods make up in speed and agility that they lack in accuracy and oversight. They are still however very effective in managing certain aspects of a project. More formal communication methods, including the use of briefings, structured data on company intranet sites, and a strong reliance on taxonomies to collect and store data, are more effective at managing data over the long-term. The more structured approach to information also translates into time advantages for projects that need to share information quickly across a very large group of stakeholders and external partners and suppliers as well.

5. How do you determine the number of communications channels? How does the number of people involved in a project affect this value? How can project managers control this value?

The number of communication channels needs to be defined by the number of internal and external stakeholders, in addition to the frequency by which they need information. In addition to these factors the number of communication channels also needs to be based on the intended audiences of communication as well; including the need for ensuring unidirectional communication or not. All of these factors need to be included in the decision of the number of communications channels to be used.